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Gladstone and Irish Grievances. 



AN ESSAY 



ON THE 

IRISH LAND LAWS, TENURES AND GRIEVANCES; 

THEIR PROPOSED SOLUTION; 

THE GLADSTONE COERCION ACT AND LAND BILL; 

AND 

THE LAND LEAGUE. 



BY 

HENRY A. BRANN, 

OF THE 

few |kffc §»*, 



e **^§i[8t§S!§3S^ 9 



NEW YORK : 
Bun j. H. Tyrrel, Printer, 74 Maiden Lanh 

1881. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1881, 

BY HENRY A. BRANN, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. D. C. 



/ 









TO 



MY BEST FRIEND AND TUTOR 



lev. §unty % $*amt, §.§., 



A8 A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE AND LOVE 



THI8 PAMPHLET 18 DEDICATED 



PREFACE. 



Americans are by nature generous, grateful, consider- 
ate and tenacious. They love liberty and hate oppression: 
they are cool and cautious, hence slow to change 
opinions once formed. Their European knowledge being 
derived almost exclusively from English authors, who. 
either from ignorance or prejudice, misrepresent everything 
anti-English, it is not surprising to find frequently the 
American mind poisoned against the staunchest friends and 
the best interests of the Republic. The education and 
training of the average American youth are such as to ren- 
der him quick and self-reliant, but he is very rarely cor- 
rectly informed upon European questions. He studies too 
many things to be more than ordinarily proficient in any- 
thing. Nor is this true only of those compelled to earn 
their livelihood at an early age, but also of many of the 
members of the learned professions. How many even 
among the graduates of colleges have read the Penal Code, 
or know the true history of Ireland ? Yet how often have 
we heard these very men declaim against the turbulence 
and ignorance of the Irish I 

How many of them picture Irish gentlemen in the per- 
sons of their coachmen, or Irish ladies in the persons of 
their cooks? How many form sweeping opinions of 
the Irish from reports in the daily press of arrests and 
convictions among the criminal classes 2 How many look 
upon the swaggering official occasionally met at the City 
Hall as the true representative of Irish gentility, or recog- 
nize in the blatant assemblyman at Albany the true type 
of Irish culture ? 

Yet it is as unjust to judge the Irish by such persons 
as it would be to measure the intelligence of Americans by 
that of the backwoodsman of the North, or that of the 
emancipated slave of the South. Is it fair to compare the 
Lettered American with the unlettered Irishman ; the pro- 
fessional with the layman ; the cultured with the uncul- 
tured ; the mechanic with the unskilled laborer i 



VI 

The Irish, with few exceptions, come to this country to 
earn their bread by manual labor, not to acquire literary 
fame or to gain professional distinction. With equal advan- 
tages, and under similar conditions in life, the Irish will 
compare favorably even with Americans. 

This brochure has been written with the view of reflect- 
ing sufficient light upon the Irish Question to induce the 
inquisitive American, for whose special benefit it is pub- 
lished, to examine Irish as well as English authorities on 
the subject, and then draw his own conclusions which, no 
doubt, will be impartial. 

New York, April 15, 1881. 

HENRY A. BRANN. 



Gladstone and Irish Grievances. 



The question of Irish grievances has been agitating the 
world, but particularly the English speaking portion of it, 
for many centuries, and it yet remains unsolved. The 
people of Ireland have been obliged to emigrate to Great 
Britain and to her colonies, as well as to Continental 
Europe, and wherevei they go they are to her a cause of 
anxiety and disturbance. Even into lands not subject to 
her imperial sway, as the United States, or in countries 
foreign to her in race, creed and speech, they have carried 
the story of their wrongs, and transmitted the ever burning 
tradition of her injustice and persecutions. The gory 
ghost will not down at her bidding. Neither enormous 
capital nor a powerful press can smother the irrepressible 
coniiict of Irish public opinion, aggressive, persistent and 
ever growing in force in every spot where an Irish colony 
exists, whether in London or Glasgow, in Australia or 
Canada, in the United States or in France. Spain or 
Austria. The bitter hostility of the Irish blood, to the 
English government is as strong in the McMahons, 
O'Donnells or Nugenfs, now French, Spanish or Austrian 
for several geneiations, as in the millions of naturalized 
Irishmen and their descendants in our own mighty Repub- 
lic, of whose strength they constitute one of the most im- 
portant and powerful elements. A marked peculiarity 
of this Irish public opinion is that English concessions- 
only make it stronger. Repeatedly has the English 
government, morally forced into yielding, relaxed the 
severity of its oppression ; and yet the Irish cry is still for 
more concessions ; each hard wrung light serving but as 
another step in the climax of aspiration for race indepen- 
dence and national liberty. The cry for Home Rule and 
for the abolition of oppressive laws has been taken up by 



8 

the Liberals even of England, and, swelled by the accreti 
of the public sympathy of impartial thinkers elsewhere, 
grows lender and stronger with age, as every cause mi 
which is based on the idea of right and justice. Truth 
powerful and eventually will prevail. Right may 
stricken down and lie helpless fora time, but, as the id 
which sustains it is immortal, it can never be annihilate 
but like an indestructible germ it will burst into li 
though wrapped for ages in the cerements of a mummy. 
At the present time there is no subject more striking 



presented to the American people than the Irish qnestio 
To some of them it is an offensive question. They are tin 
of hearing it discussed and often at a loss to understni 
its meaning ; the meaning of the denunciation by t! 
organs of Irish public opinion of a government that is ge 
erally supposed to be the most free in the world, and th 
has been pluming itself for centuries on its superiority 
continental despotisms; the meaning of inflammatoi 
speeches by Irish orators ; of Fenian insurrections, subs 
dized by the contributions of even the poorest servant gir 
and laborers ; the meaning of a thing hitherto unknown i 
Irish history, a partial renunciation of sacerdotal leadershi 
in political matters by the Irish laity ; and, stranger yet, 
renunciation in some cases by Irish enthusiasts' of the fait 
of their fathers, because it seemed to trammel their revi 
lutionary purposes ; the meaning of the recent Iris 
famine, and the wild ovations given by Irishmen in ever 
city of this glorious Republic to a man whose avowed pu 
pose is to overthrow English supremacy by abrogating tl 
land laws which give to the British nobility and gentr 
their prestige and their power, and thus Americanize th 
whole English system of land tenure and politics. 

There are two causes of grievances, two sources of hoi 
tility on the part of the Irish against their English cor 
qnerors, the one religious, the other political. Th 
element of race, technically so called, has little t 
do with the difficulty ; for, as the blending of Brittons 
Romans, Saxons and Normans has destroyed the origins 
Anglo-Saxon breed, so has the blending of Danes, No] 
mans and English with the Irish Celts changed their norms 
condition. There is, it is true, an Irish national type, a 



9 

there is an English national type, bat there is neither a 
pare Celtic nor a pare Anglo-Saxon race in existence. 

Although the religions element of discoid between the 
two nations is not so old as the political one, it may be well 
to say a word aboul it first, as it is gradually losing its im- 
portancein the straggle. Since Catholic Emancipation in 
1829, a spirit of religions liberty has spread throughout 
the British Empire. 

The attacks made upon the Anglican Church by 
infidelity and the independent sects, has made her 
more desirous of forming an alliance with the old con- 
servative Church which is now rising into power, and 
developing into numerical strength in every town and 
city of Great Britain, from the Highlands of Scotland to 
Land"-. End. The Anglicane want a truce with the Catholic 
Church even though they may not love her. 

The removal of penal disabilities from the Catholics of 
[reland, and especially the recent Disestablishment has 
made them comparatively content on the score of religion. 
Of course there are still many annoyances to which Catho- 
lics are subject; the spirit of the penal laws survives 
their death ; but there is a general dying out of the old 
spirit of bigotry which butchered Catholic women and 
children at Drogheda, and Wexford, under Cromwell; 
bigotry nurtured by the butcheries of Coote in Wicklow 
and Meath. These massacres of Irish " papists" and 
countless others, done with the full sanction of the English 
Parliament, must naturally still foster a feeling of bitter- 
ness in the minds of the Catholic Irish. Nor has the mem- 
ory of the penal laws been yet effaced. By those laws no 
Catholic could settle a jointure on his Catholic wife, or 
charge his land with any provision for his daughters ; or 
make a will disposing of bislanded property. If the wife of 
a Catholic declared herself a Protestant, she could force her 
husband to give her a separate maintenance and to transfer 
CO her the guardianship of all their children, thus creat- 
ing discord in the family. If the eldest son of a Catholic 
father, however young, declared himself a Protestant, he 
thereby made his father strict tenant for life, depriving 
him of all right to sell or dispose of his estate, and such 
son became entitled to the absolute domain and ownership 



10 

of the estate. If any other child than the eldest became a 
Protestant, that child became free of parental control, and 
the father was compelled to support the rebel. ^ 

Thus did the law not only sanction bat encouraged dis- 
obedience to the commandment of God, k ' Honor thy father 
and thy mother." Any Protestant could take away the 
land bought by a Catholic and pay him nothing for it. 
Thus the Catholic lost both his money and his land. No 
Catholic could inherit land from any relative. Any 
Protestant could take by law such land from its Catholic 
owner. If a Catholic leased a farm of land for a term not ex- 
ceeding thirty-oneyearsan I by his labor and industry so im- 
proved it as to make it yield a profit:, not exceeding one-third 
of the rental, any Protestant might then by law evict him 
and enjoy for the residue of the term the fruits of the labor 
and industry of the C itholic. Thus was there a penalty put 
upon the labor and industry of the Catholic. If a Catholic 
had a horse worth more than five pounds, any Protestant 
could take it by offering this amount, although the horse 
might be worth one hundred pounds. Any Catholic conceal- 
ing such horse from a Protestant was liable to three months' 
imprisonment and a line of three times the value of the 
horse. These were the chief penal laws against Catholics 
holding property. k The laws against Catholic education 
were still worse. If a Catholic kept a school or taught 
any person, Protestant or Catholic, any species of liter- 
ature or science, he was punishable by banishment, and if 
he returned fiom banishment he was liable to be hanged 
as a felon. A Catholic child attending a Catholic school in 
Ireland, forfeited all his property, present or future. The 
same punishment was inflicted on a Catholic child that 
went abroad to be educated in a Catholic college. Any 
Irishman paying for the education of a child in a 
foreign Catholic college,' forfeited all his property. A 
Catholic could not be an officer in the army or navy ; he 
could not be even a private soldier. He could hold no 
office in the state of any description. He could not be a 
judge, grand juror, sheriff, barrister, solicitor, attorney, 
agent or even a gamekeeper. 

In some Irish towns Catholics were not permitted to 
dwell. They were politically like the negro slaves in the 



11 

South before the war. They had no rights which a 
Protestant was bound to respect. The penal laws against 
the clergy were simply brutal. To teach the Catholic 
religoQ was a felony punishable by transportation. To 
convert a Protestant was a capital offense, punishable as 
treason. Monks or friars were banished, and if they 
returned they were adjudged guilty of high treason and 
hanged. Bishops or abbots were transported, and if they 
returned they were hanged, disemboweled and quartered. 
Large rewards were offered for the apprehension of Catho- 
lic schoolmasters and priests, so that the '.'knife" which 
Curran says is the proper symbol of the informer's pro- 
fession became the idol of the "priest-hunter." The 
celebrated Edmund Burke, an Irish Protestant, speaking 
of the system of penal laws says : "It had a vicious per- 
fection; it was a complete system, full of coherence and 
consistency, well di jested and well disposed in all its parts. 
It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and 
as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and 
degradation of the people and the debasement in them of 
human nature itself as ever proceeded from the perverted 
ingenuity of man." It is not so long since those laws have 
been abolished that the Irish Catholics should have for- 
gotten them. The child does not forget in the afternoon the 
lashing of the morning. Still the spirit of Christian charity 
and the love of national liberty are gradually effacing the 
vestiges of those infamous laws which must have been 
"framed by devils and hatched in hell." In religious 
matters England has become liberal, and we can agree 
with Cardinal Manning, that Catholics are to-day better 
treated in his Protestant country, than in many of the so 
called Catholic nations of Europe. Irish grievances on 
the score of religion may be considered virtually settled. 
A peaceful revolution, prompted by the interest and good 
sense of the English people may solve the political griev- 
ances of Ireland before the end of the present century. 
If not, they will eventually be solved by a bloody conflict. 
The religious grievances of Ireland began with the Re- 
formation ; her political grievances began at an earlier date, 
they commenced with the Norman invasion and English de- 
mi'iion in Ireland, about the middle of the twelfth century. 



12 

The two grievances were BOmetimes united, as during 
the days of the penal laws, but the political troubles pre 
existed ami have Burvived the religious. While the 
religious grievances existed, the Irish, always ardently 
attaohed to their religion, sometimes sacrificed their politi. 
oal interest to their religious Peeling. This is especially 
true in iho case of their defenoe of the English King .lames 
11. They shed their blood tor him although he cared ven 
little for them and manifested no appreciation of their 
Loyalty and fidelity, He was an ungrateful, weak, coward- 
ly man. far inferior in every respeol to William of Orange, 
The Irish made the blunder of fighting for a despol and 
were severely punished foril by his political competitor. 
Neither Charles 1 nor James 11 deserved the sympathy or 
support of the Irish nation. These kings were foreigners, 
and appreciated the Irish only bo far as ii subserved their 
own selfish interests. Thej paid taxes and filled the royal 
coffers ; they were good Boldiers and fought the royal 
battles. The invading Normans, although nominally 
Catholics, treated the Irish with extreme cruelty. Their 
attempt to subjugate the island, however, was never fully 
successful. For several centuries a small portion of the 
Eastern province of Leinster, called the "rale/* was 
the only part of Ireland that acknowledged the English 
power. War raged between the English colony and the 
Irish from A. D, 1178, for about five hundred years, eon 
tinuing through the reign of Elizabeth, who made des- 
perate efforts to subdue the Irish, until the reign of 
James 1, when, if not conquered, they were at least 
for a time kept silent. During these centuries of struggle, 
massacre and confiscation marked the advance of the 
invading power. 'The Norman, always cruel, seems to 
have outdone his ordinary barbarity while endeavoring to 
subdue the Irish, The} were denominated " Irish enemies " 
in all the royal proclamations, royal charters and acts 
of parliament. The English were prohibited from inter 
marrying with them, as the Irish wives succeeded in de 
nationalizing their English, husbands and making them 
••more Irish than the Irish themselves," and what is still 
stranger, the English were forbidden to sell wares or goods 
of any kind to them. To murder an Irishman was no crime 



for an English coloniHt; unlesH th« Irishman happened to 
have made submission and had been received into English 
allegiance, and even in thie ca ie ait murder was punishable 
only by fine. U is nor to be supposed that the Irish 
remained patient during those ages of war, They retaliated 
h all their native rindictiveness, and who could blame 
tnemJ and many an English garrison and marauding party 
fell rictims to the fierce valor of the Irish chief tains The 
early confiscations of Irish property for the benefit of Nor 
man adventurers were surpassed by the subsequent ones 
During the reign of James [, in the early part, of the seven 
teenth century, the entire province of 01 >ter was taken away 
from its native owners, who were all either banged, 
raghtered or driven into the Western bogs and mountains. 
Their place weie filled with Scotch adventurers who 
had embraced Prote tantism, and petted and fostered 
a the ehave ever been by the parent government ; indti itrj 
and commerce of various kinds encouraged among them, Ks 
ii any wonder thai they should have succeeded where the 
hunted and persecuted Irish p< have failed? Is it, j. 

in new of the different treatment given by the government 
to the native Irish, and the important " Ulster Plantation'' 
to attribute the commercial superiority of the latter to innate 
thrift or natural industry? The veriest drones would have 
thriven and prospered nnder such encouragemenl as James, 
a Scotchman himself , gave to bis Scotch countrymen settled 
in Ireland. In the reign of Charles the [, the crown cordis 
cated the estates of the Irish in three provinces to the amount 
of over one million acres of land, ye( the J 
committing a fault, similar to that which they afterwards 
repeated in defending the rights of Jame II, againsl William 
of Orange, took np arms for Charles, and igh 

L .Monro*-. Tichboume, Triton. ' om 

At the end of this I omwell transported eighty 

thousand [rish to the West indies to be sold 
.Ian.' ■'•oiid. although a Catholic, took eighty thousand 

acres of the land confiscated by his father, yet the [rish foi 
gave him and foolishly med their blood for him afterwards 
at the battle of the Boyne. The Irish army, thirty thousand 
strong, capitulated lo William of Orangeat Limerick. The 
treaty of Limerick, guaranteed to the [rish the free and 






14 

unfettered exercise of their religion, but it was broken M ere 
the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry." The Irish conic 
expect little better from William, a foreigner, whom the En- 
glish had called to be their king. The penal laws followec 
and remained 'more or less in force until Catholic Eman- 
cipation became an accomplished fact, in 1829. Since 
that time the chief Irish grievances have been of a 
political character. The Irish complain that the English 
Government discourages commerce and puts a penalty 
on the industry ol the people. They point to the harbors ol 
Cork, Limerick, Kingstown, Gal way and Waterford, and 
the many seaports on the insular coast, and ask the English 
Government why it has done nothing for Irish commerce 
The answer is that the English merchants do not wish the 
trade to be diverted from Liverpool, Plymouth, and the other 
English seaports. There are mines of copper in Wicklow, 
Waterford, Cork and Tipperary ; gold in Wicklow, and lead, 
tin, zinc, marble and salt beds in various parts of tlie island. 
Why does not the English Government encourage the work- 
ing of these industries? Because they would interfere with 
the mines of Cornwall or Wales. Rivers and lakes abound 
in the island ; yet the laws prevent the people from catching 
the fish in them. The laws prevent the peasants from fishing 
in the waters that are owned by feudal lords living in baro- 
nial splendor, while the poor serfs are dying of starvation in 
the hovels within sight of the leaping trout and salmon. 

The serf dares not shoot a bird, or spear a salmon, or 
catch a hare for himself and his famishing children. The 
law forbids it, and forbids him further to own a gun or a 
pistol, or a pike or a spear. The birds may fly in the air 
the fish may leap in the brook, destined by nature's God for 
the sustenance of the poor, yet the law, the iniquitous law, 
will condemn to penal servitude the starving Irishman who 
dares to assert his right to them by force. Yet the 
Irish are not by nature a patient people. Religion holds 
them in check. 

As there are neither factories nor commerce in Ireland, 
owing to the selfish policy of the English Government, the 
peasantry are obliged to depend chiefly on the land for their 
support. When the land fails them they have nothing. 
The English or Scotch farmer can go to Glasgow or Liver- 



15 

pool, or Manchest- 9 -Id. if the paternal acres be 

foand too small to rapport him. and find in the many 
chann-ls of commerce the me: pport. A few hoars' 

in the railway cars brings him from the home of penary 
into comparative pie S : so the poor Irisman : he does 

not understand commerce, for the:- - : r him to learn 

in Ireland. He mist le~. mtry ail _■ 

foreign part?, and there m- for Wa 

country and his creed. He therefore depends on the land 
sLj for sapper: : and th- chief Irish n-ierance at the 
present time is the land question. The Irish peasant has 
reason to believe that when Sr. Patrick he snakes and 

toads from the land, they took possession of the cruel land- 
lords, and still live in them. He looks around him and sees 
that nearly all the land now ownel by the landlords, was 
confiscated p-rhaps only a hundre a . and that 

some of it was then owned by his own an Traditions 

are always vivid in a pastoral or an agricultural commu- 
nity. I natural that doubts at validity of the 
present ow - - .onld cros3 his mind, especially if he 
knows that prescription, occupancy or possession, can n- 
remove the cloud from a title acqnired by ^nd fir. 
He is a tenant to the grandson of some William:- . in- 
well ian soldier : a tenant at will, liable - evicted on 
shor: notice, with a helpless family to provide for. 

He is but a tenant ; he can never be an owner. The law 

ents him from ever owning an inch of I I which he 

tills, and which K _ re him tilled: of the 

spot in which he was born, and in which his ancestors for 
generations may have been born. For it is well to remember 
that although mere tenants at will, still Irish cottiers have 
lived for a century in the same place, owing to the good will 
of the landlords. Certain families, slaves in the South, w 
son Ad when the planters 1 

of a benevolent race, and the: sorb. But the 

danger and fear of sale, like the terror of e n for an 

i peasant family, always hung like the sword of 
Damocles over their head. The peasant not only can t 
become an owner, but there is a penalty for his industry. 
1 him cultivate the acres too welt let the hedges bloom 
in beauty, instead of remaining dilapidated ; let him dress 



16 

well, or dare to dress his children well, or assume the ap 
pearance of comfort at his peril. If he do, his rent will b< 
increased by a landlord who lives in Paris or London, an( 
manages his estates in Ireland through some unprinciplec 
"squireen"' of the " Corry Kinchella" stamp. He pays ren 
from the sale of the crops ; sells a pig, or a calf, or a foa 
once or twice a year at a neighboring fair, and thus tries t< 
eke out a miserable existence from year to year, his famili 
ever increasing, for the Irish peasant is not a believer in tin 
theology of Malthus. Now if the season is bad, or if th< 
crops fail, what becomes of the poor peasant ? He starve* 
and dies, as he died from 1847 to 1851, and as he died during 
the recent famine ; dies by the operation of English lawi 
cruelly kept in existence by the English Parliament througr. 
the influence and selfishness of landlords and capitalists. 

If he were an infidel he would assassinate his landlord 
or join a secret society for murdering capitalists like th( 
Carbonari, of Southern Italy, or the Nihilists of Russia 
Being a Catholic, obedient to his Church, he is patient anc 
suffers, to use his own familiar phrase, "his purgatory in this 
world." Is it a wonder, in view of such a state of affairs 
that the Irish peasant sometimes in his great trials loses his 
patience, loses it when he sees his wife and babe evicted and 
dying of hunger in the ditch ; refuses to hear the voice o1 
his priest, and plots the murder of the heartless landlord \ 
Is it a wonder in view of such a state of oppression, thai 
there should have been an Irish rebellion in 1798, and anothei 
in 1848, and that generous Protestants laying aside theii 
religious feelings should have been its leaders, for Emmett. 
Wolf Tone, Smith O'Brien, and John Mitchell, were all Pro- 
testants ? 

Do we wonder more at Fenian insurrections, and the hatred 
of the Irish for the English Government ? For mark there is 
a little more than twenty millions of acres of land in Ireland. 
"One-third of this land is owned by two hundred and ninety- 
two persons. One-half by seven hundred and forty-foui 
persons. Twelve men in Ireland own one hundred and eighty 
thousand acres of land each, while about three millions of the 
people are tenants at will, that is, they can practically nevei 
own an inch of Irish soil so long as the present laws regarding 
land tenure exist, and are completely at the mercy of theii 



17 

landlords. These three millions live from hand to mouth."* 
Their food is of the poorest quality ; their clothing of the 
coarsest. There are thousands of Irishmen who seldom or ever 
eat a morsel of roast beef, beefsteak or mutton, during their 
natural lives. Oat meal and potatoes are the diet of the 
Irish small farmer and laborer, very rarely a bit of bacon 
with his greens on Sunday, but rarely, if ever, fresh meat of 
any description. He may buy a herring for a half-penny; 
but the good salmon and trout must go to the table of the 
landlord. It must sound strangely in American ears to learn 
that many of the able-bodied Irishmen, aged twenty-five and 
thirty, who daily land upon our shores, have never tasted 
fresh meat in their own country, yet the ancestors of these 
very men who are thus starving, were the rightful owners of 
the three millions of acres confiscated by James I, in Ulster ; 
of the eight millions of acres confiscated by Cromwell, 
and of the million acres confiscated by William of 
Orange. They know this and they feel it just as keenly in 
this country as they did in Ireland. 

There is no chance for an Irish peasant farmer ever to own 
the land which he tills. The feudal law of primogeniture, 
unjustly gives all the land of the father to the eldest son, 
and treats the younger sons as if they were illegitimate ; and 
mediaeval laws of entail, which in some cases deprive the 
female children of all rights to their father's landed pro- 
perty, serve to keep up the land monopolies and to increase 
rather than diminish the power and wealth of the landlords, 
almost half of whom are absentees, never live in Ireland, but 
spend in living in luxury and licentiousness abroad the 
money wrung from the poor Irish serfs. Some ten years ago 
an attempt was made to modify the land monopoly despotism 
of Ireland by the passage of what is known as " The Encum- 
bered Estates Court Act." By this act the law of entail was 
abolished in regard to estates that had become embarrassed 
by mortgages or other encumbrances. Formerly such estates 
could be thrown into Chancery and held by the creditor un- 
til his debts were paid. They then reverted back to the 
original owners. But they could not be sold. Now they 
can be sold, but the tenants cannot buy them, for they are 

*John Bright, Birmingham Speech. 



18 

not sold in small parcels but as a whole, and are generally 
bought up by large corporations composed of English and 
Scotch speculators, so that the law intended to benefit only 
injures the tenantry, for their new landlords are, if possible, 
more exacting and heartless than their old ones. 

The tenants cannot buy their homesteads even if they 
have the money, for they cannot compete with London and 
Glasgow capitalists. If the land were sold in small parcels 
the tenants could purchase, for foreign corporations or spec- 
ulators would not take the trouble to buy small pieces of 
land, as the investment would be too insignificant. " The 
Encumbered Estates Court Act " has therefore proved an 
absolute failure ; after a fair trial it has not accomplished 
the object for which it was passed, nor does it in any way 
relieve the necessities or supply the wants of the people. 

Mr. Gladstone, in a speech delivered at the opening of 
Parliament in January, 1881, said: " We are obliged, by 
the evidence, to admit that the 2)rovis ions of the act (o/*1870) 
have 7iot prevented undue and frequent augmentations of 
rent tohich were not justified by the real value of the hold- 
ing, but have been brought in in consequence of the superior 
strength of the position of the landlords." 

In Ireland there is no real estate market as in this coun- 
try ; nor, owing to the law of entail and primogeni- 
ture, which regulate the descent, and transmission 
of property, can real estate there be said to be at all 
in commerce. While the American, Frenchman, Belgian 
or Prussian can own his own house and lot, sell it to 
whom he pleases, buy another if he has the money, the 
Irish peasant is, properly speaking, houseless. No wonder 
the hovels of these poor people should be wretched, and not 
fit for cattle to live in, why should the peasants embellish 
them 1 They are not theirs, they belong to the landlords, 
" and the landlords must be a degraded set of human 
beings, to leave such evidence of human misery erect on 
their estates ; and force their tenants to live with pigs and 
cows "* Nor is it fair to charge these peasants with lack of 
thrift, and contrast them with the Scotch. We in the United 
States know that the Irish are thrifty. Their thrift and 



*Fannie Parnell's Irish Hovels. 



19 

industry have been proven beyond question in Canada arid 
Australia, as well as here. They save their money, educate 
their children, buy farms, become successful merchants and 
agriculturalists, distinguished physicians, authors, actors, 
lawyers, and statesmen, whenever and wherever they get a 
fair opportunity. 

In Ireland industry is punished by higher rents, and 
thrift is rewarded by eviction ; and this state of affairs has 
lasted for centuries. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
the Scotch are naturally more industrious than the Irish. It 
is true that the " Plantation of Ulster" flourished under the 
fostering care of James I. The same royal Scotchman 
favored his own country when he became King of England. 
Scotland gained by the union of the crowns. 

She was not conquered by invasion like Ireland. 
It was she that annexed England, and put her 
James VI on the English throne ; she kept her own 
laws, her own Church supported by the State, and 
obtained all the commercial favors she desired from 
England after the union in the reign of Queen Anne. Ireland 
invaded, persecuted, crushed, her national religion outlawed, 
her lands confiscated for the benefit of her enemies, and her 
national life almost extinguished, how can she be compared 
with ever-favored Scotland ? Yet such is the vitality of the 
Irish people that, although scarcely fifty years have elapsed 
since Catholic Emancipation, and after centuries of despotic 
cruelty sufficient to have stamped out of existence every 
spark of manhood and independence in an ordinary people, 
she is now rising into great power despite the recent famine. 
She counts her sons as twenty-five millions, scattered in every 
part of the earth. 

In Cromwell's time they were not more than a million. 
Their political power is felt in the very largest centres of 
English wealth ; and they actually rule her colonies. But a 
few years ago, one of her exiled sons, Charles Gavan Duffy, 
governed Australia, while D' Arcy McGee controlled Canada, 
and both were Irish rebels of 1848. To-day her band of 
resolute obstructionists is feared in the Imperial Parliament 
which has hitherto sneered at the mere mention of Irish 
political grievances. In fact a new era has dawned for the 
Irish peoj)le, and they may soon add to the glory of being 



80 

the only raoe who supporl Christianity on the voluntary 
principle, thai of reforming the British Constitution, destroy 
ing its superannuated feudalism, and Americanizing illiberal 

law s. 

How shall this be donel How shall an end be pm to 
Irish grievances 1 Will ii be by a peaceful revolution, bi 
constitutional measures, dictated by the good senseand fair 
lw^s o( the English Parliament, or will it be by a civil war! 
There are many answers to these questions. There isa class 
of [rishmen who believes in dynamite and the dagger ; who 
consider any means justifiable to gel rid of [rish landlords 
and English oppression. They would have in [reland, if 
they could, a Sicilian vespers, or a St, Bartholomew's day, 
and it' possible would induce the tenant fanners, armed with 
daggers, to take every man his landlord and end the des 
potism b\ a genera] assassination. 

The English iio\ eminent should mark well the increase in 
the numbers o( [rishmen who, despite of priest and law, ate 
strong believers in this horrible remedy tor the woes o( their 
country. The late Earl of Leitrim, a powerful landlord, was 
assassinated, and the government, although offering a Large 
ie\\ aid. has nol yet been able to find the assassin. 

It is sad to see Irishmen become Nihilists or Carbonari. 
The Fenians, who have so frequently been heard of during 
the last twent) years, although nol supporters of the assas 

sination remedy, yet do believe in the sword, in civil war 
and insurrection. 

They have attempted rebellion ; have broken out in insur- 
rection, and s.nno of rhem have paid for their so called trea- 
son the penalty o( transportation. Theydeny the legal right 
of England to [reland, and claim that if she ever did have a 
Legitimate title to the sovereignty of Ireland, she has lost it 
through neglect and cruelty. They say that the child is not 
bound to honor the cruel parent or to obey him ; the wife 
may Leave her husband's bod and board on account ol bad 
treatment ; why should a whole people be bound by 
stricter ties of loyal obedience to a despotic government 
than wife or child 1 When the English Government 
neglects the people of Ireland and allows them to starve, 
the obligation of loyalty ceases. They say that the urea t 
theologian St. Thomas, justifies rebellion under certain eir- 



21 

Cumstances, and quote the following from his "8nmm$ 
Theologia" as proof: " Laws are nnjnst in two ways, first, 
when they are opposed to the common weal,' 5 as are the 
In-., vhich caused the famines in [reland, jecond, "when 
they are onerous, and imposed by a government not for the 
good of the common jreal, bul for the sake of self-interest or 
ambition ; or on account of their authors not being rested 
with proper facul tie • tin they may be anjusl in form, 
hen the taxes are nnequally divided among the multi- 
tude . although in other respects tending to the public good." 

ch laws are rather outrages than laws; since St. Aug 
tine says: "An unjust, law i- nol binding." They willeven 
Cite from Balmes and Swarez to justify insurrec- 

tion against English misrule in Ireland. Now there are 
many who, although deeply attached to the conservative 
teachings of the Catholic Church in the matters of civic 
obedience to the p< thai be, believe with the Fenians, 

thai the English Government ha- no right of conquest in [re 
land, or that if she ever had, she has forfeited it by \i<-v ill 
treatment of the [rish people. Th the relations 

between governed and governing are4M6sMm&; the contract 
mnsl be kept on both and England I mefully 

broken it, if it ever existed al all. so far as the consent of 
the irish is concerned. It is said thai if you scratch a R 
sian you will finda Cossack, and it, will be found generally 
true, that if you scratch an irishman you will find a Fenian, 
in theory at leasl The Peniai al i claim thai nothing 
has ever been, or ever .'.ill be granted to [reland 
by England, excepl from fear ol the sword, and 
that agitation an to nothing. Th eloquence 

of Gfrattan, they say, failed utterly to obtain the indepen- 

ce of the [rish Parliament; hut th'.- volunteers of 11 
presented an argument in favor of the measure which the 
English Government did not dare to dispute. Jt is true that 
agitation in th not prolific of good results. 

tesmen then never dreamed of settling national disputes 
in any other way than by force. 

The mei 3tion of shaming a g ivernmenl into grant- 

ing relief to the oppressed would have been ridiculed, and 
the idea of forcing a government by threats or warnings to 
repeal orreform nnjnst and oppressive laws would have been 



laughed at as Chatham was when he exclaimed in the V.n 
glish Parliament, " Do justice to America, do it to night, do 
it before you si* Bui they forget thai O'Conneli wrung 

Catholio Emancipation from an English Parliament by 

ition, by constitutional means, under the most extraor- 
dinary difficulti^a For the Irish Catholics, without influ- 
ence, education, wealth or prestige, were the 011I3 persona 
j interested in the measure, and the support given tc 
it l\\ mis w.is accorded only by t ho liberal few, the 

man) being either openlj opposed to it or passively indiiVor 
out. He was struggling for the Catholics, not for the whole 

rte, at least this seems to have been the view entertained 
by the great majority of Prot smnts. The Fenians may say 
that O'Connell was one of the greatest geniuses of tit 
tury ; for ho not only removed from his countrymen theii 
religious disabilities, but created for himself the title oi 
M Liberator," and that, although dead more than 1 
third of a century, it has never since been even claimed 
bj an\ man. Phoy may say that there has been but 
one Daniel O'Connell, and we will not dispute t ho 
fact ; but lot us remind them that things have changed a^ 
much for the better, between O'Conneirs day and ours, a; 
they did between Grattan's day and O'Connell's; that tin 

smanshipof "iron and blood" is not now considered the 
highest order of statesmanship, but rather the lowest ; thai 
the sword was thou mightier than the pen, while the reverse 
is ;ho fact u.m\ ; thai this is the progress; thai odu 

cation is now more general, civiliiation more perfect, and 
men more enlightened, free and independent. Who doubts 
for a moment thai had Walter Scott, the prince of novelists, 
who died as late as 1832, lived to our day, he would laugh at 
the idea of - ; a man who proposed lightii 

streets >ndon with gas, a dangerous person to be loft at 

liberty 5Tel in his day he entertained this opinion, ab 
surd and silly as it seems to us. while contemplating tin 
superior beauty and brilliancy of the electric light. 
When the electors of Clare son: O'Connell to represent 
thorn in the English Parliament, the intelligence did 
not reach thes - v . nearly three weeks 

a Longer time than it took Mr. Parnell to sail from Now 
s . v j stown; make his canvass >al thes 



'■ 

<••.( man in I ne ' ■ ' !ork 5 and re< 

from his admiring frie i : on of 

There are now thirty-nine Irish memb i the Engli 

i'. i liament ror of Home R nd 

millions of li isbmeti ding them with I 

their mon< I theii el Pj i 

from revolution at present. If U the . in 

able only when all other remedu 

rid of their grievan itional 

means i I tl f .ii<;r methods, if theymosl There 

Oi age ;«n'l the 
Green : i>mIi pennanl i now flo;if, from the same flagstaff 01 
a united people for the first time in If 

I mnell did rr.'icli ander the rm> 

' nell and 
.ill do more nnder circun 
cioni 'I he union of Pi I 

omen and a tot the nltii ' 

which ■ ■! feeling tfc 

ha re al ed\ 

1 
jealo 1 much 

of the clan and too little of the ni rit in Ireland. 

Bui thi >f a (tail 

through f.b<; influence of the presenl ' z of the 

.'I. 

from the pre ' nt ; for altln 

become liberal of !af<- 'till unjn 

cruel • [rish. 

iff -A on the b 
of t: pitable 

still ringing in on; 

hhri'-k of anguish that came from thefamishinj to rend 

our 1 in 

>red in e ion in E 

in Naple andei King B ; in the P 

in our :. in behalf of 

' led "li 

other people, n 
the civiliz I of allowing millions of il own 



24 

subjects, within sight of its wealthy coast, to starve. Eng- 
land looked on in apathy. The Queen contributed one day's 
salary to the famine relief fund ; the Prince of Wales gave 
one thousand dollars; ihe rest of the royal family gave 
nothing; the English nobility and English people little or 
nothing ; while America and France poured in their dona- 
tions with generous hands. One American gentleman, 
whose generosity should be remembered with everlasting 
gratitude, gave one hundred thousand dollars, and collected 
nearly three times that amount to " clothe the naked and 
feed the hungry." 

The cruel and parsimonious conduct of England has in- 
tensified Irish hate ; it has reawakened the memory of the 
penal laws and of confiscations ; it has sharpened the pike 
and polished the gun of the revolutionist ; it has rekindled 
the insurrectionary spirit of Fenianism ; it has increased 
the dynamite fund ; it has driven many of the most conser- 
vative into expressions of sedition<t~!i it has cemented 
the bonds of Irish fraternity in every land where the scat- 
tered people of Ireland are to be found ; it has made the 
hearts of the second generation of Irishmen here throb with 
indignation — and a muttered curse upon the oppressive gov- 
ernment is the voice of twenty -five millions of the offspring 
of Erin. 

The leader of the present land reform movement in Ire- 
land, which has aroused the attention of the civilized world, 
is Mr. Parnell, but should he be convicted and imprisoned, 
or even die to-morrow, the idea he rejDresents will live, and 
Ireland will command another of her sons to take up the Un- 
stained Banner and advance the cause of her persecuted, 
starving tenantry. 

Men are mortal, ideas are eternal. Should Mr. Parnell 
fail, another will succeed, and if not by his methods by 
other means. His are not only the most feasible, but 
the only methods upon which the great majority of 
Irishmen will unite at the present time ; let the Irish then 
test ere they reject or condemn them ; they have been divi- 
ded too long. The cause he champions has enemies it is 
true, but so had Emancipation ; it has doubting friends, but 
so had the Disestablishment. All doubts may be cleared 
away ; all enemies may be silenced by the grandeur of the 



25 

iatesfc political triumph, and Mr. Parnell or some other dis- 
tinguished Irishman may be called jn the near future to the 
title left by O'Connell for a worthy successor. 

Whnt does Mr. Parnell seek for the Irish tenants that he 
should be called a communist f He seeks to abolish the 
laws of entail and primogeniture, which prevent real prop- 
erty from being divided up ; to establish lixity of tenure ; to 
give the tenants the right to purchase land and the privilege 
to live, and to curtail the powers of the landlords. All of 
these things have, been done by countries at whose civiliza- 
tion England sneers. 

The greatest men in England say most of them ought 
to be done in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone, in his Midlothean 
speech, said : "' The tenants chiefly effect the improvements 
in that country (Ireland), and they must be secured in these 
and their other rights, which are still often threatened or 
confiscated by the landlords" Mr. Bright said to the elec- 
tors of Birmingham : " The powers o^ the landlords to evict 
and to raise the rent reduces to a minimum, security of ten- 
ure and incentive to industry : they must therefore be cur- 
tailed or abolished" Are Grladstone and Bright com- 
munists ? 

But say the landlords, legislative bodies have no right to 
interfere with freedom of contract. In the sixteenth century, 
Spencer, speaking of the unsettled character of the Irish 
peasantry, says : " This inconvenience may be reason enough 
to ground an ordinance for the good of the commonwealth 
•against the private behoof or will of any landlord that shall 
refuse to grant any such term or estate unto his tenant as 
may tend to the good of the whole realm." It would hardly 
be considered a compliment to England to say that she was 
farther advanced in civilization in the sixteenth century than 
she is in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Mr. 
Gladstone, on the 27th of November, 1879, in an address at 
West Calder said : " The legislature are perfectly entitled to 
buy up the landed proprietors for the purpose of dividing 
the country into small lots." This is just what the Land 
League wants them to do. " In principle," he says, "no 
objection can be taken to it. I freely own that compulsory 
expropriation is a thing which is admissible, and even sound 
in principle." In theory, Mr. Gladstone is as good a Land 



26 

Leaguer as Mr. Parnell, for he admits the soundness of 
the principle for the triumph of* which Mr. Parnell is 
struggling. 

In 1822, J. W. Croker, Chairman of a Parliamentary 
Committee, described Ireland as consisting of landlords with- 
out friends or influence : peasants without an interest, al- 
most without a livelihood in the country ; nothing to de- 
fend ; nothing to love ; desperate and despairing; ripe and 
ready for a change. 

" In Ireland,'' he says, " tenure at will is indefinite op- 
pression ; (enure by lease oppression by lease; rents are 
not the proportion but nearly (lie whole produce.'''' It need 
hardly be said that the state of affairs in Ireland to-day is 
precisely what it was in 1822. Sydney C. Buxton says: 
" There can be no real freedom of contract between land- 
lord and tenant in Ireland, and therefore the State can and 
should interfere in the relations between them.''''* 

J. A. Farrer, says : "By what principle can we say that 
tenants bargaining collectively with their landlords, are not 
as much within their rights as a landlord bargaining singly 
with his tenants? Freedom of contract therefore, if it justi- 
fies anything, justifies the principles of the 'Land League,' 
for those very principles are its logical and legitimate con- 
sequence?' "f Yet the English Government seeks to coerce 
the Land League. 

Now let us, see if there are any instances in which legis- 
lative bodies have interfered in favor of the tenantry of a 
country. In 1793 the provisions of the Permanent Settle- 
ment of India protected the tenant farmers against exactions 
of the landlords, by decreeing that whoever held land as a 
tenant for twelve years preceding, at a uniform rent, was 
entitled to hold it forever at that rent. 

By the provisions of the Bengal Recovery of Rents Act, 
passed 1859, " to prevent illegal exactions and extortions" 
in connection with demands for rent, the rights of the ten- 
ants were reassured, and '"if the land had diminished in extent 
from any cause or the value of its produce or productive power 
had decreased from any cause extraneous to the tenant, 



*Buxton's Hand Book. 

{Fairer Contemporary Review, February, 18*1. 



27 

then he had a legal claim to an abatement of the rent to be 
previously paid." 

Tn France generally since the Revolution of 1789, there 
has been a peasant proprietorship in the soil and in the south 
of France, where the Meteyer system prevails, the rent con- 
sists of a fixed percentage of the produce, so that owner and 
tiller prosper or suffer together. 

In Portugal where the Aforamento tenure prevails the ten- 
ant has a hereditary lease at a fixed rent which cannot be 
increased. In Italy, by the Contrato dl livello the owners are 
obliged to assign lands to the cultivators for payment ot cer- 
tain dues and at a fixed rent wliich cannot be increased except 
by arbitration. In Prussia, Saxony, Hesse, and the greater 
part of Germany the hereditary lease was established on 
state domains at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
In Holland, where the Beklem-regt tenure exists, the tenant 
has the right of occupancy at a fixed rent which cannot be 
increased by the proprietor, and the right of the tenant 
passes even to his collateral heirs as well as to those in direct 
line, andean be devised, sold, let, or even mortgaged without 
the consent of the proprietor. 

In portions of Egypt by an edict issued in 1858 the fel- 
lahs are allowed hereditary succession which is recognized 
even among femates. "Lands never return to the state ex- 
cept in default of heirs, and in this case the village can 
claim precedence to the state. Whoever reclaims unculti- 
vated land becomes proprietor of it.'''' 

The Act Maria Theresa, passed June 23, 1772, declared 
that all waste lands of communes and corporations should 
be sold at once ; and the law passed March 25, 1847, still in 
force, authorized the government to sell communal lands 
not under cultivation, and 33,000 hectares were sold under 
this act between 1847 and I860.* 

Prosperity and happiness reign in these countries and 
famines and discontent are there unknown. 

It has been frequently stated, that the land laws of Eng- 
land, are precisely similar to the land laws of Ireland, and 
Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, in his charge to the jury in the Land 
League case, recently tried in Dublin, goes even a step 

*De Lavelye'a Primitive Property. 



28 

farther, for he says, "that the laws of Ireland are mort 
favorable to the tenant than those of Great Britain, Belgium 
or the United States." This is not true, and Justice Fitz 
gerald must have known it, or ought to have known it. The 
laws of entail and primogeniture have been long since abol 
ished in the United States, but they still exist in Ireland. Tin 
land laws of Belgium are just, equitable and honest, while 
those of Ireland are positively infamous.* Now let us see ii 
the land laws of Ireland are similar to those of England, or, as 
Mr. Justice Fitzgerald asserts, " more favorable to the ten 
ant" The tenant laws of Ireland have undergone nc 
material change since 1868, nor have those of England 
and Cardinal Manning, writing in that year, says : "Ii 
England, the traditions of centuries, the steady growtt 
of our social order, the ripening of our agriculture and in 
dustry, the even distribution and increase of wealth, have 
reduced the relation of landlord and tenant to a fixec 
though it be an unwritten law, by which the rights of botl 
are protected. Our land customs may be enforced in tJu 
Courts, and thereby have the force of law. * * * Ii 
three-fourths of Ireland, there are neither laws not 
customs. The tenants are tenants at will. * * * I 
the events which had passed in Ireland since 1810 
had passed in England, the public opinion of the latter 
country would have imperiously compelled the Legislature 
to turn our land customs into Acts of Parliament. If anj 
sensible portion of the people of English counties were to b< 
seen moving down upon the Thames for embarkation t( 
America, and dropping by the roadside from hunger anc 
fever, and it had been heard by the wayside that they wer( 
tenants at will, evicted for any cause whatsoever, the pub 
lie opinion of the country would have risen to render impos 
sible the repetition of such absolute and irresponsible exer 
cise of legal rights. If live millions, i. ?.., one-fourth of tin 
British people, had either emigrated in a mass by reason o 
discontent, misery or eviction, or had died by fever or f am in< 
since the year 1848, the whole land system of Englanc 



* In Belgium out of a population of about four millions, one million an 
property owners, while Ireland, with a population of about five and a hall 
millions, has less than twenty thousand property holders. 



29 



would have been modified so as to render the return of 
such a national danger impossible forever. But both these 
suppositions have been verified in Ireland. * * * The 
deepest and sorest cause of discontent is the Land Ques- 
tion. * * * The Land Question, as we call it by a some- 
what heartless euphemism, means hunger, thirst, nakedness, 
notice to quit, labor spent in vain, the toil of years seized 
upon, the breaking up of homes, the miseries, sicknesses, 
deaths of parents, children, wives, the despair and wildness 
which spring up in the hearts of the poor, when legal force 
like a sharp harrow, goes over the most sensitive and vital 
rights of mankind. All this is contained in the Land 
Question." If the question of veracity could arise between 
one of the greatest, purest, and most honorable Englishmen 
living, and a weak, truculent, partizan, Irish Judge, we 
confidently believe that the universal verdict would be that 
Cardinal Manning nad told the truth, and that Justice Fitz- 
gerald had not. But how can the question of veracity arise 
between a man who stands like Saul, head and shoulders 
above his fellows ; whose whole life has been devoted to the 
material and spiritual welfare of his countrymen ; whose 
name is synonymous with honor, honesty, truthfulness, and 
patriotism, and a man who unnecessarily libels Belgium and 
the United States ; whose position on the bench was ob- 
tained by cringing to the life-long enemy of his country, 
who ' ' croo ked the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift 
might follow fawning;" whose charge in the recent Land 
League trial, ' 'taking it all in all," would have disgraced even 
the notorious Jeffreys ? It would be an insult to the in- 
telligence of our readers, even to intimate that the question 
of veracity could ever arise between Cardinal Manning 
and Justice Fitzgerald. 

While the kindest, the tenderest feelings for all who 
aided Ireland in the hour of her dire distress, have been ex- 
pressed and are still entertained, there can be no doubt 
that Mr. Parnell and his associates, who have dedicated 
their lives to the removal of the cause of Irish famines 
and Irish suffering— present and future— are the only 
persons who take a comprehensive view of the Irish 
question, and whether they succeed or fail, they are entitled 
to the support, the sympathy and the admiration of man- 



30 

kind. They do not sanction or approve of confiscation, as 
has been falsely and maliciously stated by their enemies, 
but even that may come if the unjust laws of entail and pri- 
mogeniture and the cruel tenant laws be not abolished. 
Worse than confiscation may come. Assassination may do 
what the law fails to do. A people who find their rulers 
heartless or callously indifferent to their just demands or 
necessities, finally destroy them. They did it in France in 
1789 ; they did it in England when they beheaded Charles 
the I ; we did it here in the war of the Revolution. If the 
Irish have not succeeded in the past, it is probably owing to 
their impoverished and uneducated condition, both caused 
by centuries of English misrule. But education has become 
universal in Ireland. The peasants are beginning to read 
and think for themselves. A spirit of individualism has 
grown up among them ; individualism which may be called 
the Fifth Estate, as journalism is called the Fourth Estate. 
Even the power of the press is giving way before individual- 
ism, the last wave in the onward roll of progress. The re- 
cent elections in Ireland leave no doubt that the influence of 
the Church is gradually receding from the political arena in 
which an independent and aggressive laicism is now all promi- 
nent. 

There is no doubt that the American people who responded 
so promptly and so generously to the call for pecuniary aid 
for starving Ireland, whose national House of Representa- 
tives, by a unanimous vote, censured England for her treat- 
ment of Ireland, the majority of whose state legislatures pass- 
ed resolutions to the same effect, will extend their unquali- 
fied sympathy to the Land League movement when they re- 
alize that the Irish tenantry are struggling for their very ex- 
istence and not because they believe in or approve of com- 
munism^ as has been falsely stated by the English press. 
Was it communism to object to the stamp act? Was 
it communism to hurl the tea into the Boston harbor ? 
If it were, then the present movement in Ireland is com- 
munistic, and Americans, ever consistent, will sanction 
it. The kindest feelings have always existed between Ire- 
land and America. 

There are no people who land upon our shores less for- 
eigners in sympathy than the Irish, not that they love Ire- 



31 

land less, but America more. They can always be relied 
npon as the bitter enemies of oppression in every form, for 
the word oppression has been burnt into their inmost souls 
an^. has rankled there for centuries. They become Ameri- 
can citizens from love and with enthusiasm. They have no 
king or queen whom they loved, to re bounce allegiance to ; 
no home of luxury and splendor to regret ; no laws of equity 
and justice to sigh for ; they recall no master with tear- 
bathed cheeks, or moistened eyes ; they come here with the 
same light hearts and bright hopes with which the Hebrews 
of old, left Egypt for the Promised Land. This is their Ca- 
naan. Ireland owes much, very much, to America, and 
America owes something to Ireland. When our troops were 
famishing at Valley Forge, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick 
of the City of Philadelphia sent them clothing. 

Henry Grattan, whose name is imperishably enshrined in 
the hearts of the Irish people, was the staunch friend of 
America in her struggle for independence, as is manifest in 
his galling invective against Flood. 

History tells us that Burke, Sheridan, Barre and others, 
did almost as much in the English Parliament for the 
triumph of the American arms as Washington did in the 
field ; that Lynch, McKean and Carroll, with the other im- 
mortal signers of the Declaration of Independence, " pledged 
their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" to the 
cause of American freedom when the great Republic existed 
only in the bright hopes of the future ; that Sullivan and 
Langdon seized the guns at Newcastle which blazed forth 
defiance and death to the British at Bunker Hill ; that 
Montgomery wrote his devotion to America with his life 
blood at Montreal ; that General Anthony Wayne attested 
his fidelity at Miamis and Stony Point ; that Barry, Mc- 
Donough and Stewart commanded our navies ; that Jackson, 
the hero of New Orleans, "had not a drop of blood in him 
that was not Irish ;" and that Clinton was mainly instru- 
mental in making our State Constitution a model of religious 
as well as political liberty, despite the bigoted opposition of 
John Jay. 

On nearly every page of the history of our late civil war 
are recorded the many deeds of valor performed by the Irish 
soldiers for the preservation of the Union, and grateful 



39 

America will never forget the impetuosity with which 
Meagher and his Irish Brigade threw themselves upon the 
advanced linos of the Southern army at Fair Oaks and the 
Seven Pines. Nor will Americans fail to recall the names of 
Shields, Sheridan, Kearney and Corcoran ; nor the fact that 
there was not a division, brigade, Dr oven regimen I in the 
whole army in which there were not loyal Irishmen; nor 
that together with their own bravo, patriotic countrymen 
they climbed the heights of Lookout Mountainand contend- 
ed for i ho victory in that memorable conflict " fought 
above the clouds ;" stemmed the torrent, of battle ai Get- 
tysburg; rolled back the tide at Antietam to save tin 1 Union 
and the lit'o of the Republic. 

After trampling upon the rights of a respectable minority 
at the expense of Parliamentary usages and in violation of 
the letter and spirit of the British Constitution ; after the 
passage of the infamous coercion acts, which spared 
neither women nor children, to throttle public opinion 
in Ireland and set at defiance public opinion and 
public' sympathy elsewhere; after the brutal murder i^( 
peaceable women struggling against cruel evictions; after 
the unjustifiable arrest ami incarceration of Davitt ; after an 
indecent delay, Mr. Gladstone has condescended to give his 
attention to what he calls "the most difficult question he 
has had to deal with in the course of his political life.' 5 
From the extraordinary reticence of the Ministry, their un- 
explained delay and the high character of the English Pre- 
mier, the lovers of liberty and the advocates of human rights 
tin- world over confidently hoped that the Irish Laud Bill 
would contain a comprehensive and statesmanlike view of 
the Irish Question which would solve the present difficulties 
of Ireland to the entire satisfaction of all impartial thinkers. 

But what must have been their chagrin when they read 
Mr. Gladstone's encomium upon Irish landlordism, above 
which " vengeance has been setting" for centuries, "like a 
vulture o'er a corpse soon to be tasted.' Eulogize Irish 
landlordism .' that like a cankerworm has been eating the 
petals out of the heart o\ the Irish nation. His eulogy is in 
perfect keeping with his bill if the reports of its provisions 
published in the daily press be correct. No provision is 
contained in it for the abolition of the laws of entail and 



83 

primogeniture, which have been the ban to tin; amelioration 
of the Irish tenantry, and which have done even more than 
the cruel tenant laws to keep them in social chains and 
political slavery for centuries. By the aid of the coercion 
and arms acts, and a little shrewd manipulation, the meagre, 
Inexplicit and Indefinite sections of the bill in the interest of 
the tenants may be rendered almost nugatory. There are 
t-.o many restrictions in the bill which destroy even its pro- 
posed reforms, limited us they are. But its worst section is 
that which gives to the Land (!onrt tin; power of Fixing rent 
find compensation, [rish Judges are the creatures of Eng- 
lish Parliaments, and their opinions or judgments have 
rarely been such as to inspire the Irish people vvith confi- 
dence or respect. 

They are mostly landed proprietors, and as their human 
nature is not of the highest older, they can hardly be im- 
plicitly relied apon to settle with any degree of satisfaction 
to the tenant the questions likely to arise between him and 
his landlord. It is notorious that the meanest,, narrowest 
partizans in Ireland have been Irish Judges, and that their 
sol.' desire has always been to propitiate their masters rather 
than to protect their countrymen. The mosl cruel, heart- 
less and exacting slave-drivers in the South were negroes, 
and yet they weie often the most, cringing and sub- 
servient in the presence of the owner. The average Irish 
Judge in Ireland, although like a, whipped spaniel in 
the presence of his superiors, has ever been the arrogant, 
domineering negro slave-driver when dealing with his 
countrymen. What chance would an Irish tenant, if a 
Land Leaguer, have; of obtaining justice from .Judge 
Fitzgerald, who is honest and impartial, so called, com- 
pared with others who disgrace rather than adorn 
the bench? Yet it is to the tendei mercies of this 
clas of public functionaries that Mr. Gladstone consigns for 
an honest and equitable adjustment the cases of millions of 
the hish people. This section of the bill is a " mockery, a 
delusion and a snare.'' Mr. Gladstone has failed, utterly, 
ignominously failed to solve the Irish Question, and we 
must look to a greater man and a not her Parliament for its sola 
tion. Tin; Land League, may, however, accepl the bill, un- 
satisfactory and defective as it is, but to suppose that it will 



34 

satisfy the League is to conclude that its members have 
taken leave of their senses. It is reported by cable that 
the noble Duke of Argyll has resigned from the 
Cabinet because of the revolutionary character of the 
bill ; this simply proves that the noble Duke has 
not read between the lines, or that he desires the 
resurrection oC the Penal Code. It is also reported that 
the Gladstone Bill will not pass the House of Lords, but 
will be strangled there by the hereditary piers of the most 
enlightened country in the world. Before acting rashly it 
might be well for their lordships to consult the land tenures 
of other European countries,of half-civilized India and of bar- 
barous Egypt, and to recall the French Revolution; the fateof 
Charles I., the result of the American war of Indepen- 
dence ; the death of Maximilian ; the collapse of the Napo- 
leonic dynasty ; the abolition of hereditary peers in France ; 
the existence of a French Republic, and the assassination of 
the Czar. It is generally conceded that something must soon 
be done to pacify Ireland and relieve her from the terrible 
tension of the past year, but the Land League apprehends 
no uprising ; nor do we hear any of its members hurl at the 
heads of the noble lords the volcanic outburst of Shiel : 
"Would you drive the country into insurrection, cut down 
the People and bid the yeomanry draw forth the swords 
clotted with the blood of 1793, that they may be brandished 
in massacre and sheathed in the Nation's heart." 

The Land League has taken pains to avoid any conflict, 
for it does not wish to have Irishmen try physical conclu- 
sions with England at present. It has waged and is 
bravely fighting a battle of the mind, not of arms. It pro- 
poses to obtain by mental superiority what military heroes 
have accomplished only at the point of the bayonet, and 
with the blood of thousands of their countrymen. Tt took 
O'Connell twenty years to gain Catholic Emancipation. If 
the Land League continue its noble work with energy, pru- 
dence and loyalty, there is every prospect of victory crown- 
ing its efforts in less than ten years. The agitation should 
be extended into every country where England has a direct 
or indirect interest ; the oppressed of every land should be 
made to feel and to realize that every link broken in the 
chains which have bound the Irish people so firmly, and 



35 

which have corroded so deeply, for centuries, is the break- 
ing of a rivet in their own fetters. 

The Land League should be like a man's hand, the 
branches like his fingers"; and in sympathy, act, desire and 
aim like a "shut fist." No jealousies should be permitted 
to dwarf it ; no party, sectional or national feeling to divide 
it ; no demagogues to control it ; no temporary disappoint- 
ments to weaken its faith in the capacity, honor or honesty 
of its able leader. It should be open to all without regard 
to creed, nationality or political affiliation. The opposition 
of American snobs and the indifference and unpatriotic 
conseroatism of Irish snobs should augment its ranks, and in- 
crease its zeal, rather than weaken its energy or lessen its 
membership. It is only the weak and cowardly who falter 
and faint before the battle; the brave and strong plant 
their banners upon the highest point of the enemies' citadel 
or die in the attempt. The heroic self-sacrifices of Michael 
Davitt should be an inspiration to his countrymen — the 
country that could produce even one such man — and Ireland 
has produced many — deserves to have the shackles struck 
from her limbs, if need be, even by the sword. Make the 
League universal rather than national, cosmopolitan rather 
than local or sectional. Have the meetings addressed by 
Americans, Germans, Frenchmen and Hebrews, as well as 
by Irishmen. The League is sure of the Irish ; with judg- 
ment and tact it can make certain of the others. The great 
heart of Ireland throbs in sympathy with the Land League ; 
the strong arm of Ireland is behind it ; the manhood and the 
brains of America approve and sanction its methods and 
its aims, and its success in the near future is assured if it 
only remain united and firm to the end. 



r 



i 




-*■ 



■*• 



AN ESSAY 



IRISH LAND LAWS, TENURES AND GRIEVANCES; 
THEIR PROPOSED SOLUTION; 
THE GLADSTONE COERCION ACT AND LAND BILL 

AND 

THE LAND LEAGUE. 

/ IiY 

HENRY A. BRANN, 

OK THK 

}f\m *Jorfc %nx. 



'•■-"< :■■<■>■-■■■ 



y 



U 



NKW YORK: 
Benj. H. Tvriikl, Peistee, 74 Maidkn Lank 

1881. 



PRICE 25 CENTS. 



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WR -o m3 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS * 

021 356 761 5 



